How to get Linux in your office

Posted at 11:31am on Saturday April 10th 2010

Many people pick up a copy of Linux Format magazine because they've yet to be converted to the wonderful, magical world of open possibilities and open source. They want to be convinced. And with Linux and free software making a name for itself in the world of big business, many more people are testing the feasibility of switching small and home office software to their open source equivalents.

Regardless of how you feel about the Linux desktop, this is one area in which Linux can have a real impact, both financially and productively, and any small or home office has the potential to be transformed by just switching one application or two to their open source equivalents. So, we've put together this guide to helping people in offices switch to Linux, explaining what tools are available for different jobs and how best to maximise compatibility with other Windows users. Read on!

The office is traditionally the domain of Microsoft, a costly and sometimes frustrating environment where you have to constantly keep on top of updates, patches and the latest versions to stay in the loop. Free software offers an escape from this cycle, and more importantly, an alternative.

Linux and free software can offer a breath of fresh air, and you don't even have to jump feet-first into a new operating system: cross-platform open source applications enable you try the alternatives before you make the big switch.

U-Switch

Most users are going to find that the free versions of the software they're used to are very similar in both design and functionality, and over the course of the following pages, we list the most important and try to highlight any gotchas and considerations along the way.

It's a sign of how successful free software has become that we could have filled these pages with various alternatives for many other common tasks and applications, but we wanted to go into enough depth that prospective users will feel confident enough to make the switch, or discuss the potential with the people who make the decisions. When you've finished reading, why not slide a copy of the magazine on to your boss's desk?

Free office

The great thing about open source software is that, no matter what platform you're using, if an application is popular enough it will have been ported to your system. Free software stalwarts like OpenOffice.org, Firefox and Gimp all work just as well on the Windows platform as they do on Linux.

This means that even if jumping to Linux seems like an intimidating prospect to begin with, you can safely swap an application or two in your regular software suite to begin with, and see how things go over a period of weeks. As your confidence builds, you could consider replacing another application, and perhaps another, until you realise that maybe Linux isn't the leap into the unknown that it used to be.

The world of the small office seems to be dominated by products from Microsoft and Adobe, neither of which have made a serious effort to port their heavyweight products to the Linux desktop. This is where open source developers have tried their hardest to catch up, building free alternatives to most of the commercial offerings from both companies.

Free software is full of alternatives, because developers like choice. And because the code that's used to create this software is open, once one application has invented a new kind of wheel, you often find its open source competitors catching up and providing many of the same features. Many are also very receptive to feature requests and personal emails, which is something that would never happen with either Adobe or Microsoft. And of course, if you or your colleagues have the necessary coding skills, you can change things yourself and make a contribution to the community.

A point you'll find we make several times over the following pages is that while there may not always be total parity with the applications you're used to in the proprietary world, in the vast majority of cases this tiny shortfall won't make a difference. There are very few office users who touch these advanced features, and if you're one of the minority of users who use the full feature-set of of an application such as Microsoft Office, we've got a solution that will enable you to keep your old applications on Linux.

Wine

If you do switch your office to Linux, there are still two ways to run legitimate Windows software. The first is Wine, an application that lets you run Windows executables from your Linux desktop. It will let you run applications like Quicken and older versions of Office without difficulty, and newer versions can be made to work if you don't mind a little tinkering. There's also a commercial Wine solution called CrossOver Office. This will run Microsoft's latest Office suite, and the money you pay for CrossOver will be rolled back into open source development. The best bit is that you won't need a licence for the operating system, only the software you use. We're getting ahead of ouseselves a little here: while it's good to know that things will still work, you'll find that maintaining Windows compatibility becomes less of an issue as you get used to the new set of tools that Linux offers.

The word processor

There is one issue that more than any other governs whether a business can switch to open source software and which software it should use. That issue is compatibility with Microsoft's venerable Office suite.

The file formats used by Microsoft have become standards, used by almost everyone for everything from quick memos and internal emails, to official letters, books and publishing. File extensions like DOC, DOCX and XLS have become synonymous with word processing and spreadsheets, PPA files for presentations and PST files for email archives. Each one of these formats is owned and governed by Microsoft, and the most important aspect of finding an alternative is that the replacement format should work as transparently as possible without the user having to worry about compatibility.

Fortunately, for the vast majority of people and uses, there are open source alternatives that will be almost 100% compatible, and you should be able to migrate to these options without any problems. There are several free Office replacements that can read from and write to Microsoft-compatible formats, and this means the people you send files to never need know you've not paid a penny for the software you're using, or that they were developed by a community of hackers unless you want them to. These applications are also just as capable as their proprietary counterparts, and they should be able to accommodate even the most arcane and esoteric formatting needs.

But there is a caveat. We said 'almost 100%' for a reason, and if you're a Microsoft Office power user, you will notice differences, especially if you like playing with Visual Basic macros in the spreadsheet. For most users, these small differences won't affect your experience or the way you share files with other people, but it's also better to have a realistic expectation of what to expect from free alternatives, and none are 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. The best choice for MS Office compatibility is a suite of applications that fall under the name of OpenOffice.org (OOo). This is a rather strange web-like name for a suite of office apps, but the name OpenOffice was already taken, so the .org was added to distinguish it from the other. It also means you're unlikely to forget the project's website.

OpenOffice.org

The initial project never meant to be free software. In the early part of 1999, it was a proprietary office suite just like Microsoft's. Later that year, one of Microsoft's competitors, Sun Microsystems, bought the the product and released the whole thing for free. The following year, the code that makes up the software was also freed, opening the package up for anyone to make changes. Since then, OpenOffice.org has been in a rapid state of development and has been the principle weapon in the fight to provide a free Office alternative for Windows, OS X and Linux desktops. The current release of version 3 are more than capable of performing all your statutory office duties, and make an ideal replacement for its commercial competitors.

The most commonly used application in every office suite, and possibly the only application most of us use, is the word processor. OpenOffice.org's is prosaically dubbed Writer, and if you've used any one of these applications in the years since the genre climbed out of the DOS-bound primordial soup, you won't have any difficulty using this one.

You type words on to the page, use tabs and markers to format things and send the results to a printer or an external file. If you've had to get used to the newer generation of Microsoft's products, you may be relieved to see that Writer's user interface is much easier to understand, which could be a real advantage if you're also considering upgrading to Microsoft Office 2007.

Loading MS Word documents is as easy as opening the file requester from within Writer and selecting the file. It can make sense of both DOC and the newer DOCX formats, and although you may get a warning that some formatting features may not be supported in the conversion to OpenOffice.org, most people won't notice any difference in layout. If your documents do look different, there's quite a lot you can do to improve compatibility.

Use standard fonts: When you're running OpenOffice.org on Linux and Word on Windows, the biggest difference between the two is going to be which fonts they use, as neither will use the same sets. But you can ensure that documents mostly look the same by keeping to the default Sans and Serif fonts used when you first launch the editor. On Windows, this means using MS Sans and Serif, while Linux users might want to opt for 'Liberation' or 'Free' versions of both typefaces.

Keep documents simple: It might seem like common sense, but the fewer formatting objects there are on the page, the less likely there are to be problems. Lots of tables or complicated headers can mess up the layout, as can certain kinds of images and the use of esoteric fonts. If something isn't absolutely necessary, such as a custom colour on a table background, you'll have better compatibility if they're not included.

Consider a better tool: If you're sharing a complex newsletter with someone, consider whether a word processor is really the best tool for the job. You might get better cross-platform compatibility by jumping to a DTP tool like Scribus, or a vector graphics editor such as Inkscape, both of which have cross-platform versions that everyone can use freely.

Choose a better format: While DOC (and DOCX if you absolutely must) is the best choice for most word processing documents in cross-platform environments, if the content of your document is entirely text, you may as well use something simpler, such as RTF or even raw text.

Open Document Format

Creating a portable word processing file format has been a hot topic for several years. Most of the free software application now default to something called ODF - the Open Document Format. This is an XML file with an open specification that any developer is free to take and implement. Because the entire specification is open, developers should be able to recreate any aspects of the document in their own applications without resorting to trial and error.

Microsoft's formats, by comparison, have normally been closed, and rely on the develop to reverse engineer the files so that their structure can be decoded and ported to an application's capabilities. This creates the situation where free software applications are always chasing Microsoft formats, and are never 100% compatible because there will always be a new version on the horizon.

Open formats don't have the same problem, and it's for this reason that the Open Document Format has become an ISO-ratified standard, despite competition from another open format sponsored by Microsoft (OpenXML). If you want to export ODF-formatted documents from Microsoft's products, you'll need to use the OpenXML/ODF translator, which is hosted on SourceForge: http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net

Microsoft has partly funded a project to bring Open Document Format support to its products.

Writer alternatives

Writer is a great application and probably the best option for general use. But there are alternatives, and if you find Writer's user interface a little too heavy and overburdened with features, it's worth taking look at what else is available. You might be surprised to find that there are several applications that are almost as good at working with Microsoft formats.

The second most popular word processor is called AbiWord, and if it's not included by default, you can install it easily through your distribution's package manager. AbiWord is faster to launch and quicker to operate than OOo. It doesn't have half as many dependencies, and doesn't consume as many system resources. You'll notice all these things as soon as you launch the application from the menu.

Everything you need for working with text is present in AbiWord, and you can start working quickly. Many more advanced features are included, such as a grammar checker, a tool for constructing formulae and links to online resources such as language translation. Newer versions will also include a 'Collaborate' menu, from which you can create an account and work on documents with other people across your office or the internet in real time. It's a great addition, and something you can't quite so easily do in Microsoft Word.

How to import and export Word files with OOo

Save files: When saving a file, you can choose between the .doc format or the newer .docx. We'd recommend .doc for best compatibility. .doc files are automatically visible when loading files.

Default format: You can force Writer to use the .doc format for every save from the Options > Load/Save > General panel

Office administration

There's more to the work of the average office than typing letters, which is why most offices use a single bundle of applications as a catch-all suite for most office tasks. Which of these applications are integral to your work is obviously dependent on what you do, but it's unlikely that you'll be able to completely avoid using a spreadsheet or an email client, or even avoid making the occasional presentation. These are the workhorse applications that an office can't function without, and while they may not be the most exciting applications on the planet, they're essential whatever platform you happen to be working on.

Anyone who works with numbers has to use a spreadsheet at some point. As they are second only in importance to the word processor, there are quite a few to choose between. The most obvious option, and the one with the best support, is the spreadsheet that's included as part of the OpenOffice.org suite. It's an application called Calc, and it's reasonably analogous to Microsoft's Excel. If you've used Excel, you shouldn't have any problems using Calc. But more importantly, you should also be able to load and save files you've been working on.

But Excel spreadsheets can be complicated, and in particular, they can be augmented with what are known as VB scripts and macros. These are quick and informal chunks of programming logic that can be used to extend custom functionality to a spreadsheet when the default functions don't offer the facilities you're looking for. They're commonly used to trawl through large sets of data, or to input and output data to and from a specific source or worksheet.

Most spreadsheet tasks can be accomplished with OpenOffice.org's Calc.

The language itself is descended from Microsoft's Visual Basic, and when used with tools like Excel, it's referred to as Visual Basic for Applications, or VBA. Getting the same VBA compatibility with applications that aren't developed by Microsoft can be tough. It adds a new layer of complexity and a new target for developers to chase.

This means that if your spreadsheet relies on VBA functionality to work, you may have a problems finding an open source alternative where your old spreadsheets are 100% functional. VBA compatibility in OpenOffice.org, for example, should be considered a work in progress. The trouble is that when people develop VBA scripts for Excel, it's unlikely they consider whether their script is going to be used with a different application.

Go-oo

But all is not lost. VBA compatibility is working nicely for most and there's a specific project working on bringing improved compatibility to OpenOffice.org. Despite our warnings, you may find that your Excel spreadheets and macros just work, and even if they don't, there's still something else you can try, a different version of OpenOffice.org. There's an alternative version that does boast better VBA macro support than the default version that most people download from OpenOffice.org, and that's called Go-oo.

Go-oo contains many different enhancements over the default version of OpenOffice.org. These enhancements have been unable to find a place in the main project which is why they're maintained under the Go-oo name. They include things like improved performance, SVG support, 3D transitions for the presentation application, a calculation solver for the spreadsheet and better interoperability with Excel, as well as the all-important VBA macro support.

If you're installing the Go-oo office suite from a Linux distribution, you'll find that most of these enhancements have already been rolled into the version that provided, but if you're trying free software on a Windows or OS X platform, you might want to grab the installer from http://go-oo.org rather than the official OpenOffice.org site.

Presentations

Presentation software has taken something of a hammering in recent years. There can't be many of us who haven't had to endure an hour or complete boredom as a co-worker clicks their way through page after page of dry statistics and slowly animating graphs. The Microsoft application synonymous with this task, PowerPoint, has become a byword for this painful process. But that doesn't mean all presentation software, and all presentations, needed to be consigned to the trash. They still have an important role to play.

The OpenOffice.org PowerPoint equivalent is called Impress, and it actually has some decent advantages over Microsoft's presentation software. The first is that, thanks to the community,there are now dozens of decent templates available that you can use freely to revitalise your own presentation style. Take a look at http://templates.services.openoffice.org and click on Impress on the tag cloud on the left. You'll find plenty to choose from, and they can all be loaded into the application from the startup wizard that appears as soon as it launches.

There's also a good selection of export file types available from Impress. You can create HTML websites and PDF documentation from the File > Export option, for instance. But perhaps the cleverest is the ability to export a Flash movie. This will preserve all your carefully crafted transitions and graphics, and enable you to place the file online for other people to watch automatically. You could even become a YouTube video star if your presentations are that good.

We know presentations are boring, but at least with OOo Impress you won't have to pay to make them.

Impress is also broadly compatible with PowerPoint, loading and saving its PPA format without difficulty. The KOffice presentation manager, KPresenter, might be an good option, but it's relatively primitive in comparison to OpenOffice.org's offering, and its PowerPoint compatibility is relatively poor compared with Impress. There are several projects working on presentation software, including MagicPoint and KeyJNote, but neither can compete with Impress for functions, and should only be considered if you really dislike the way both PowerPoint and Impress do things.

Email

In any Windows-based office, there's no getting away from the ubiquity of Outlook. It's what many people consider to be the only face of email, in the same way that Internet Explorer used to be the only accepted way of accessing the internet. As with IE, there are some serious open source alternatives that you may find make a refreshing change to the multiple-sliding panels and do-all interface offered by Outlook and Outlook Express.

But which you use is going to depend on how your email is delivered. If you happen to be using Microsoft Exchange, things get a little more complicated. There are solutions, including costly 'exchange' bridges to local clients and enabling IMAP on the Exchange server, but these might be more trouble than their worth. It might be easier to ask any Linux converts to use the Exchange web interface until a better solution can be found.

But in a small or home office, it's likely you'll be grabbing your email from a third-party's internet service, either as part of their hosting package or perhaps through an online provider like Google or Yahoo. In those cases, you'll most likely be using the IMAP or POP3 protocols to connect to these remote servers, and these are widely compatible with most email clients, regardless of the platform.

Manage your email, contacts, tasks and calendar from Evolution.

In the cross-platform category, there's the recently released Thunderbird 3. Developed by the same people that made Firefox such a success, it's a mature and stable application that can be augmented by numerous addons and extensions, just like Firefox. It's also widely used and stable. The latest release adds tabbed mail viewing and a dynamic search interface, and should offer a revolutionary experience as a replacement for Outlook.

If you really need to maintain as close an Outlook experience as possible, then the Evolution email client is the closest match for functionality and design (http://projects.gnome.org/evolution).

It's also the default email client for Gnome-based distributions, and includes the contacts and calendar additions as sliding panels for the complete personal information manager experience.

More open alternatives

The real beauty with open source software is that there are always alternatives, and if you don't like how one particular application works, there's a good chance you'll find another that's a better fit for you. There are several spreadsheet applications that can compete with Calc for usability, although none can really compete on Excel compatibility.

Two of the most popular are called KSpread and Gnumeric. KSpread is part of the KOffice suite. This is a group of applications that are ideally suited to the KDE desktop, and includes a word processor, graphics editor and presentation tool alongside the spreadsheet. The suite as a whole isn't bad: we couldn't really recommend the word processor over its competitors, but KSpread is a genuine alternative to OOo Calc if you're looking for a lightweight number-cruncher.

Gnumeric is a more mature application and is also available as a Windows download, which makes it another alternative to both Calc and Excel. Like KSpread, it can import worksheets from most other applications, including Excel, and is a fast, efficient application that works well for the majority of people. In spreadsheet terms, it's the alternative equivalent to AbiWord in the world of word processors, and is definitely worth a try if Calc doesn't quite work for you.

Print and design

Whether you want to crop an image to drop into a document, create a website design or draw a diagram, there's a free software tool that's up to the job. There are more options for graphics design in the world of free software than there are for almost any other type of software. There are applications that cater for everyone from the photo enthusiast to the print shop and publisher. OpenOffice.org even includes its own image editing and drawing tool.

That said, in the world of the professional designer there's really only one application that's considered, and that's Adobe's Photoshop. It's a huge application that seems to have grown a new set of functions every year for the last decade, and as a result, it can be difficult to learn and difficult to migrate from. If you're looking for a free software version, the truthful answer is that you're not going to find one. But if your editing requirements are more modest, there is an alternative, and it's called Gimp.

Everyone seems to have heard of Gimp. This is thanks to its stupid name and its rather arcane user interface, which it seems to have inherited from one of those older versions of Photoshop. But get past these shortcomings - and the rather steep learning curve - and there's a powerful application lurking just beneath the surface. Just don't expect to be able to make any quick edits without a little pain.

Like Photoshop, Gimp uses layers to keep the various parts of an image independent of one another. Each layer can be filtered, modified, warped and transformed freely, and various layer modes can be used to change how one layer's colour affects another. If you've not used Photoshop, it can be difficult to get your head around, but it basically enables you to build up complex images from simple parts, apply effects and export the whole project as a single layer.

Photon paint

Gimp is also the best tool for importing Photoshop image files with the PSD extension as most of the layer information will be preserved, and you can edit the file and send back the results using the same file format. It's not a complete format conversion, but if you can get the contact who's sending you the PSD file to render their layer effects before sending you the image, there shouldn't be too many problems.

If you want to edit photographs, then Gimp has a good range of automatic selection tools where you can use a colour proximity threshold to automatically select parts of an image, as well as several other types of selection. You can perform the normal contrast and brightness adjustments, and make more complex tweaks using histogram graph or a menu full of various filters and effects.

The only real problem with Gimp is that it doesn't natively support the CMYK colour space that's the bread and butter of professionals. You can get around this limitation by installing a plugin that creates the separation manually, but it's a long way from integrated support that the end user doesn't even have to think about.

Gimp is a powerful solution, and can replace its expensive counterpart in many place. It also has the advantage of being available for Windows, which might help if you want to run it alongside Photoshop for a while, but we can't wholeheartedly recommend it as a Photoshop replacement until the long-promised GUI overhaul materialises (this is planned for the next release, version 2.8) and it gets a lot easier to use.

If someone sends you a PSD file from Photoshop, Gimp will let you open, edit and save it to the same format.

Scribus

Thanks to the prohibitive cost of proprietary DTP packages, this is normally the type of product that's regarded as rather niche, leaving most people to create their bulletins and newsletters from a word processor. But if all you've used is a Word or Writer, Scribus can vastly improve the quality of your output (www.scribus.net). And because it's free, you've got nothing to lose by giving it a go. There are several useful templates from which you can create a new project with Scribus, and you can use these for most standard situations. You can find many more at www.scribus.net, including a massive list of label and CD cover templates, which broadens this application's use even further and should help keep you and your colleagues from the clutches of proprietary software.

If you write a newsletter, try dumping your word processor and giving Scribus a try.

Inkscape

If you're looking for a vector graphics editor rather than a bitmap editor, you'll have better luck. This is because there's an application called Inkscape that can do almost everything you need without being all that complex or difficult to understand (www.inkscape.org). You can use Inkscape to create scalable diagrams, illustrations, artwork and text effects, and export these creations using the industry standard SVG format as well as a PDF.

It's broadly equivalent to Adobe's Illustrator application, and includes many of the same features. Images are built out of a series of paths, which are usually either straight lines or smooth curves with junctions used to mark changes from one section to another. These shapes can then be filled and overlapped. A layer palette, much like those used in Photoshop and Gimp, is used to keep each section of the overall image independent and you can process the layers.

Inkscape even manages to be better than Illustrator at some things. SVG is its native format, for example, and this means it's generally much easier to load and save to the format from within Inkscape, and the resulting files should also be better formatted. Several of the tools, such as the paint bucket, the gradient tool and the drawing tools can be easier to use, and there are keyboard shortcuts for for the vast majority of functions. It might not be able to compete in terms of industry acceptance, but Inkscape is still more than capable of creating stunning output.

Many of the icons and widgets used on the Linux desktop are provided as SVG images that can be edited and used freely from within Inkscape.

It's also perfect for print, because the scalable nature of the images means that there's no limit on the output resolution, whether that's from home printer or a commercial duplicator, and it's used by most open source artists to create all those plastic-like icons that every software project seems to have nowadays. You'll probably find Inkscape easier to use than OpenOffice.org's own image editor, and there are stable versions available for both OS X and Windows.

Should you need to combine images and words with any degree of proficiency, desktop publishing applications are few and far between. But in the world of open source, Scribus has grown to become the standard. It's an application designed to help you pull images and text into something that will look good on paper, whether that's a flyer for a Chinese restaurant, a brochure for a local store or even a periodic journal. Like Gimp, it doesn't quite have the streamlined workflow and maturity of its commercial competitors, but it's catching up quickly and for the vast majority of people, it's going to offer more than enough features to accomplish most tasks.

Get started with Krita

If you're looking for something that's easier to use than Gimp, you'll have to settle for something that isn't quite as powerful. Your next choice should be a KDE-based application called Krita.

Krita is part of the KOffice suite of applications, although it can be installed within your Linux distribution as a single application, and like Gimp, it uses layers and a series of dialogs to cover your screen with more functions than you can ever use. It even support CMYK. But the big difference is that, by default, Krita uses a single application window rather than littering the screen with floating dialogs, which makes it slightly easier to use and understand.

Launch wizard: To create an image from scratch, choose 1024x768 as a resolution with a white background. Enable this as the default option.

Zoom in: The default view is a little too small. Either select the magnifying glass or use your mouse wheel to zoom in.

Start editing: You can now copy and paste images, use the drawer tools and modify layer properties quickly and easily to create your image.

Your comments

Good article --- except that

Norwegian Penguin (not verified) - April 10, 2010 @ 10:02pm

I would never use Scribus or Gimp in Enterprise environment. Tried to create a folder in A4-format. Turned on a Windows computer and used my original version of InDesign 2.0 (not CS 2.0, but 2.0 -- actually 2.0.2)

Hm... maybe that should be your challenge the next two weeks?
Next edition of Linux format shall be created using Scribus (layout), Inkscape (Graphics) and Gimp (photo manipulation/editing). Bets of luck.

Trond

If only

Dan W (not verified) - April 10, 2010 @ 11:28pm

I would love nothing more than to have a completely Linux/FOSS office, but it is much harder than simply finding alternative programs.

I'm the sys admin for a small office. I had the opportunity to choose every piece of hardware and software. It was my goal to run Linux on everything. Unfortunately, the snag I ran into (and suspect many others are running into) is industry specific software. The software we require to well...conduct business is strictly Windows only. It's heavily .NET and integrates directly with Word and Excel, so right there our workstations are locked to using Windows and MS Office as much as I hate it. There simply is no alternative software for many industry specific commercial software packages.

At least the servers run Linux...

Life can be easy

Alpine Penguin (not verified) - April 10, 2010 @ 11:53pm

I believe in free and open world...

Question:
How do you get tables from papersheets into OOCalc sheets ?

Extra:
The scanner you payd lots of quid does no work with recent versions of Windows!

Answer:
1. Xsane(GUI) or scanimage(CLI) to create files in pnm format at 300 dpi
2. Use OCRAD with the right charset option for you on every image and append (>>) to somefile.csv
3. Do repeat for as many pages as needed
4. Use sed to insert semi-colons (;) as seperators for the future columns (fast but takes a little time to spell :-))
5. Have a beer and never accept to do stupid repetitive tasks again.

Further questions ?

Its been done before!

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 11, 2010 @ 10:58am

>>
Hm... maybe that should be your challenge the next two weeks?
Next edition of Linux format shall be created using Scribus (layout), Inkscape (Graphics) and Gimp (photo manipulation/editing). Bets of luck.
>>

Its already been done before and I have to say that I noticed no difference between the edition done with Opensource tools and the normal editions.

Obviously it must not be as easy, otherwise they would use Opensource tools all the time.

The applications are good - BUT

GreyMane (not verified) - April 11, 2010 @ 11:17am

I don't question the strength of the Linux desktop but for the lack of an organisation that can deliver hardware with Linux ,ie Ubuntu, and support in quantity say 600-1000 Units.
At least in Sweden and neighbouring countries this seems to be an impossibility.
If there is no organisation that can participate in public procurement how can we ever expect Linux in great quantities in public institutions ie schools and colleges and by extension in the private sector.

Tried but failed :(

Rahim (not verified) - April 11, 2010 @ 12:23pm

I have installed Mint on Office PC and was quite happy since financial accounting software we use (Tally) had a linux installer as well.
But with this yea 2010-11, our Govt has made it mandatory to file our Excise/VAT Returns online and is only compatible with MS Office and that too 2003 or higher and their sites doesn't work but on IE 6 only :(

So our staff do use Linux but those jobs can only be done in Windows which is frustrating to say the least.

Me Like Article

Goooo as in Good (not verified) - April 11, 2010 @ 7:27pm

on thing thou, the line that says:

¤¤ people you send files to never need know you've not paid a penny for the software you're using, or that they were developed by a community of hackers ¤¤

Those sound scary for a normal person, Hackers are almost always seen as a threat in normal day to day talk. Combinde whit not paid a penny, it's sonds a bit monkey.

Good job on the rest

Any suggestions for

DJM (not verified) - April 11, 2010 @ 10:08pm

Any suggestions for converting a hospital over to open source?

All of our patient clinical letters, imaging, blood results are currently accessed, and I think, stored on Windows equipment.

D

@Suggestion for Hospital

Rahim (not verified) - April 12, 2010 @ 9:57am

My hospital runs Windows 2003 server with custom software package.
I too would be interested in how OSS can be implemented in a hospital environment.

I convinced my boss

Marko (not verified) - April 12, 2010 @ 3:58pm

My boss have been using Ubuntu for almost 5 months now, he generally uses IBM AS-400 and he is very happy with how the OS works (fast, relliable, etc). I gave my boss ideas of how some linux desktops can be put in some PCs which use nothing more then IBM's client access terminals, and email, in order to save plenty of dollars.

The next ones I have to convert are the guys in networking and security, their only concern is policies, is there software to stablish DESKTOP policies from a directory service (such as ldap)?

Once again the TuxRadar show their incompetence...

HandyGandy (not verified) - April 12, 2010 @ 7:37pm

and saying there are two ways to run Windows applications on Linux--Wine and Crossover--totally ignoring the most common way that people switching to Macs run indispensable Windows apps--Parallels--ie using virtualization. This despite the fact that Linux runs several excellent virtualization environments: qemu, virtualbox, xen, vmware ... ; and having published two articles on the subject.

Kompozer as an alternative to Dreamweaver?

thecorfiot (not verified) - April 12, 2010 @ 9:23pm

Come on guys. Be serious. Kompozer is a non-starter by comparison. To be honest though, the lack of any decent Linux desktop equivalents has pushed me, for one, in the direction of Drupal. Given that it is cross platform, it deserves a mention along with other CMS apps.

Also, must agree with HandyGandy. Virtualization has always worked for me where WINE fails.

Quickbooks or Peachtree NOT Quicken.

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 13, 2010 @ 5:16am

The main thing that stops me from moving office customers over to Linux is the lack of recent versions Quickbooks Pro and Peachtree. Quicken is a personal finance program and is not compartable to the others. So is Gnu Cash. No tax and payroll capability is a problem

I have an idea

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 13, 2010 @ 5:18am

When I go to subscribe to your print magazine, please do not tell me that the code is no good.

What about email apps that

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 13, 2010 @ 6:39am

What about email apps that interface with exchange servers? Evolution is hardly a suitable replacement.

Excellent Open Source Accounting / ERP Software

Eugene Markow (not verified) - April 13, 2010 @ 8:22am

Instead of using limited accounting/finance software like "GnuCash", try out "Xtuple PostBooks ERP" for any small or large business. It is excellent software which utilizes PostgreSQL as its relational database. For the smaller mom and pop store with a cash register, check out "OpenBravo POS".

Great article, I use Open Source every day

apexwm (not verified) - April 13, 2010 @ 1:09pm

I use the software mentioned in this article every day both at home, and for my personal business. In fact, our business is still operating today because of open source and Linux. If we would have paid for Microsoft software over the years, we'd surely be bankrupt by now. Linux has allowed us to run as efficiently as possible, and as such we've managed to stay healthy over the years.

Re: Once again the TuxRadar show their incompetence

Bob X (not verified) - April 13, 2010 @ 1:46pm

The article says "So, we've put together this guide to helping people in offices switch to Linux". Note that it says "switch to Linux". If you're running 7/Vista/XP under VMware then you're patently NOT switching to Linux - because you've paid (unless you're a pirate) for that copy of Windows that you're currently using.

Wine (and Crossover) are allowable under the stated aim because they DON'T need a copy of Windows.

So "HandyGandy" I suggest you try READING the article before going all foaming at the mouth at the TR team.

That said, (and going off topic a little) I agree that VMware (and VirtualBox) are invaluable - heck, I'm getting to the point where I'll be happy to pay £80 for a licensed copy of VMware rather than use the "free" ones. My current Ubuntu8.04/64-based VMware Server host has at least a dozen VM's configured, including two versions of Windows, (along with Solaris and a passel of Linuxes)

I run a business and I use Linux 100%

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 13, 2010 @ 7:40pm

I have set up an engineering consultancy. I use a laptop and now have 100% Linux installed. I use LaTeX for documents (I can produce hypelinked pdf reports that look good and my customers like). I use excel via cross-over and that is superb for £25. I have VariCAD for design which is a fraction of the cost of other 3D CAD software.

I am currently porting most of my VB excel macros over to OOo via Python (you should run an article on this BTW)

I find things are 100% more robust. I have 100% more freedom to do all I need.

Further, I am sure that all my client confidential data is not exposed to snooping by OS vendors without me knowing about it.

Sure I have to make compromises. But do you r-e-a-l-y need all these "critical" business applications that "need" M$ or Mac apps? No you don't. Take the licence costs and give that to user training on OOo apps. you will be more secure and crucially more focused on what your customers need.

We put a man on the moon with slide rules so I know you can move to Linux

Shared Contacts

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 14, 2010 @ 5:39pm

It seems bonkers but there is no way of sharing contacts in Thunderbird or Evolution.

LDAP is fine in theory but unusable in practice.

Dur.

ERM-programs in non-UK/US countries

Norwegian Penguin (not verified) - April 14, 2010 @ 9:19pm

I am noticing that people are talking about GNUcash and other programs for accounting, invoices and so on.

Here in Norway the only choices I have are Online services.
I have found an Invoice program made in Python, but the development on this software has halted / stopped.

Related to the 50 list: Most of the companies using Linux use them on the server side. And that's understandable. Linux servers are stable - and you don't have to reboot after every upgrade like you have on windows and then get downtime...

need "ie" use opera

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 16, 2010 @ 7:59am

opera has tool for switching to user-mode-agent to say i'm a internet explorer or firefox or mozilla or opera... =)

Making the switch

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 22, 2010 @ 4:46am

- suitable replacement for visio, dia does not cut it for server room/data centre layouts/design (nor does the kde tool, I cannot remember its name right now)
- as someone I think has already mentioned; evolution does not connect to exchange 2007 or share contacts
- a quality point of sale software with full reporting and support for receipt printers
- a robust and reliable general ledger system for small businesses
- a FREE replacement for SBS

I have been a dabbler in linux/unix for a few years now and everytime I think I have found the solution to the above issues, I hit a stumbling block.
I was very interested in the patching the kernel article as I think that this is the way to go, learn the nuts and bolts and start properly contributing to linux to help alleviate the issues I have found.

I too use Linux to run the

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 12, 2010 @ 1:44am

I too use Linux to run the front and back office of an (automotive) engineering consulting company. Since 2005. Work with Global 50 corporations. Those Global 50 corporations _could_ move to Linux and OOo but they give up profits by not doing so. Until then my business is more competitive because of OSS.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.